Editorial: Violence in Indy demands long-term solutions

Here's a bit of perspective on the spike in murders in Indianapolis this summer: The city in reality isn't suddenly more dangerous. In fact, aggravated assaults, generally accepted as the best measure of a community's level of violence, are actually down this year compared to the same point in 2012. And shootings are at virtually the same level as last year.

The difference between an aggravated assault and a homicide can be an inch or two, depending on where a bullet or knife blade enters. But homicides grab a community's attention, as they should, and we've witnessed a disturbing string of murders in recent weeks.

The community can afford to relax -- or forget the pain, the devastation, the fear that murder brings.

As Public Safety Director Troy Riggs pointed out Friday in a meeting with The Star's Editorial Board, violent crime rates in Indy are unacceptably high. And they have been for years.

Crime is high despite the fact that the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department accounts for about half of the city budget and public safety in general (including fire protection, code enforcement and animal control) consumes more than 85 percent of spending. Part of the challenge is putting enough police on the streets to adequately patrol a city of the geographic scale of Indianapolis. Indy encompasses 361 square miles; New York City, with about 10 times our population, covers 305 square miles of land.

Riggs and police chief Rick Hite are pressing for greater efficiency within the department in order to shift more officers to the streets and hire civilians in cases where their expertise can help manage dollars more wisely and free officers to do what they do best: police the city. Although that's a much-needed move, it won't fully solve the problem. The city needs more officers, but there's little appetite -- either among elected leaders or residents -- for higher taxes in order to pay for them.

But there are important things to be done that don't necessarily require city involvement. Riggs talks about the need for mentors to connect with kids. About the need for community organizations to connect with families. About neighbors simply looking out for one another. He also talks about the breakdown in social behavior -- how too many young people in areas plagued by crime and poverty have no regard for authority.

Still, there are key steps that the city and state have neglected for too long. A prime example: Each year about 5,000 inmates leave Indiana's prisons and come back to Marion County. The current re-entry process serves no one well. Government-mandated but parolee-financed services such as drug testing place an unrealistic financial burden on ex-offenders, who often struggle to find legitimate work. Many of them turn back to crime to make money.

The community also has been inconsistent in confronting school truancy, which is a quick path to dropping out, and, for many teens, eventually prison. Although resources have been poured into confronting the problem at times, the focus tends to soon wane.

Riggs argues -- correctly -- that the city must confront both problems. "We can't just address truancy and ignore re-entry," he said.

Violent crime is commanding the headlines this summer. And it should. When 16-year-olds are dying on our streets, all of us should be alarmed.

But the challenge is to continue to maintain our focus, if, as history suggests, the surge in murders begins to fade. That's because the underlying problems that are causing the spike in homicides will remain, and the need to work together in finding long-term solutions will be just as great.

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Editorial: Violence in Indy demands long-term solutions

Here's a bit of perspective on the spike in murders in Indianapolis this summer: The city in reality isn't suddenly more dangerous.